Paul and Coreen Evaskevich (middle) present GPRC President Dr. Robert Murray (left) with a $500,000 cheque for the new Evaskevich Centre for Health Research and Innovation. Photo Credit: GPRC / Facebook

By Curtis Galbraith

Community

Long-time association with GPRC results in huge donation

Nov 23, 2020 | 6:00 AM

A local man says a long-time involvement with Grande Prairie Regional College led to his family making the largest individual donation the college has ever received.

Paul and Coreen Evaskevich have donated $500,000 to establish the Evaskevich Centre for Health Research and Innovation at the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital.

Paul says his family has had an interest in the community for many years.

“I’ve had a particularly notable association with the college over many years on the Board of Governors and the (GPRC) Foundation and what-not. So, we thought that in our fading years, it would be only appropriate that we would contribute to the ongoing welfare of the college community.”

Paul also says that for him, the college “has been a big part of my community work.”

He adds this idea came about while doing estate planning.

“As life goes on and we find that we’re in the November of our years that we should decide to give back to the community what the community did for us.”

The centre will work in the areas of rural, northern and Indigenous health.

The donation was announced on Friday.